The two "Chamber Symphonies" recorded here are in fact two of Dmitri Shostakovich's celebrated string quartets, orchestrated, with the composer's approval, by Rudolf Barshai, who as a member of the Borodin Quartet enjoyed a long collaboration with Shostakovich. A recurring element in Shostakovich’s œuvre is the use of "popular" music, such as themes reminiscent of the circus or cabaret and "Gypsy" tunes. It is also well known that Shostakovich was acquainted with, and deeply attracted to, Jewish folk music, which he described as "almost always laughter through tears" – a quality he found "close to my ideas of what music should be". The disc is part of a project called Essential Music initiated by the re:orchestra, a young and vibrant ensemble based in Rotterdam but with its members active in some of Europe’s foremost orchestras. Together with its artistic director, the Mexican-Dutch conductor Roberto Beltrán-Zavala, the ensemble regularly undertakes multidisciplinary projects attracting a rocketing audience of young people. For the present disc, the multi-instrumentalist Vasile Nedea, with a Romani background, has arranged a Russian klezmer dance, a group of folk melodies from Transylvania and Muntenia and two Romanian dances: Turceasca and Hora de la Goicea.

An esteemed conductor who has worked with most of the major orchestras and made more than 300 recordings, José Serebrier is also a prolific composer. He became established at an early age with Leopold Stokowski giving the world première of his Symphony No. 1, when he was only 17 years old. He studied composition with Martinu and Copland, while also learning conducting from Doráti, Monteux and Stokowski, who named the 22-year old Serebrier his associate conductor. This dual career has flourished ever since, as demonstrated by this disc on which Serebrier conducts the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in some of his most recent works. These include the Symphonic BACH Variations for piano and orchestra in which Alexandre Kantorow, winner of the 2019 Tchaikovsky competition, shines in the solo part. Newly recorded material is combined with the previously released Flute Concerto – the only work on the disc not conducted by Serebrier himself – and two tango-inspired shorter pieces. For Serebrier, these and the recent Last Tango before Sunrise form a kind of return to his youth in Uruguay, where he was born.